บททั้งหมดของ THE ALPHA'S GREATEST MISTAKE : บทที่ 41 - บทที่ 50

The verification meeting was set for the third morning after the council runner departed.Rowan delivered the news to Elara himself, standing in the center of the inner-ring dwelling while Sera played with a small wooden carving near the hearth. His voice was even, almost mild. The councils wished only to eliminate an old rumor, he said. A short, supervised conversation. He would escort her personally. The Alpha had already approved the arrangement. There was no cause for alarm.Elara listened with her hands folded in her lap. The formal cords on her wrist felt tighter than usual. She studied his face for any trace of the cold distance that had lived between them since the night he found the mark. His expression gave her nothing. Only the same controlled calm he wore on long patrols.“You’ll be with me the entire time?” she asked.“Yes.”She nodded once. The alternative—refusing and drawing greater suspicion—felt more dangerous than compliance. She told herself the meeting would be br

The senior researcher declared her dead before the last of the shattered glass stopped sliding across the floor.There was no dramatic final breath for Rowan to witness. One moment the violent surge of uncontained resonance still crackled in the air; the next, the body on the table simply failed to rise into another convulsion. The technicians moved in with the hurried efficiency of people trying to salvage data from a ruined procedure. One checked for a pulse at the throat, then at the wrist where the foreign mark had been. He shook his head once. The senior researcher made a short note on his ledger and ordered the remains secured for further study.Rowan remained against the wall until the order was given to clear the room.Only then did he step forward. The smell of scorched metal, ozone, and blood hung thick. Elara’s face had gone slack and pale beneath the residual streaks of strain. The restraints still held her in place, unnecessary now. He looked at her for a long time—at the

Two years after Elara’s death, Rowan took a second mate.The arrangement was practical and publicly unremarkable. The woman came from a solid secondary bloodline within a neighboring allied pack—quiet, obedient, and without ambitions that might complicate the inner ring. The formal claim was conducted with minimal ceremony. Pack members offered the expected words of approval and returned to their duties. Within the year she bore him a son.They named him Caden.The new wife’s presence changed the shape of the household almost immediately. She did not raise her voice. She did not challenge Rowan in public or in private. But she watched. And what she watched most closely was the way his gaze still found Sera in a room—brief, assessing, never warm, yet still directed. That glance, however cold, was more attention than the second mate was willing to share.She never spoke the objection aloud. She did not have to. Within weeks of Caden’s birth, Sera was moved from the inner-ring dwelling t

The lesson did not begin as a lesson.It began as a correction.Caden had been dismissed from afternoon drills early after holding the final stance without tremor. Instead of returning directly to the inner-ring dwelling, he lingered near the low wall. Sera was already there, sitting on the stones with a small collection of smooth river rocks she had gathered that morning. She held one out as he approached.“This one looks like a tooth,” she said.Caden took it, turned it over in his fingers, and almost smiled. “It’s just a rock.”“A tooth-shaped rock.”He was still examining it when Rowan’s shadow fell across both of them. Sera’s posture stiffened first. Caden’s hand closed around the stone as he straightened.“Caden.” Rowan’s voice was level. “With me.”“Yes, Father.”Sera slid down from the wall without being told. She glanced once at Caden, small and uncertain, then walked quickly toward the cottage path. Rowan did not look at her. He turned and walked toward the narrower trail th

The extra drills lasted four days.Caden reported to the senior yard before first light and left after the last horn. Stance work until the muscles in his shoulders burned. Combat forms repeated until the sequence lived in his bones without thought. Rowan supervised personally. He corrected with short commands and did not raise his voice. He also did not mention Sera’s name once.The silence was worse than the work.On the fifth morning, when the other junior Enforcers were dismissed, Rowan kept Caden behind. The yard was empty. Frost still clung to the edges of the packed earth. Their breath showed in the air.“Walk,” Rowan said.They took the eastern trail that climbed toward the old overlook. Caden’s body remembered the route before his mind fully engaged. His legs were heavy from the drills. The ghost of the kiss still lived under his skin in inconvenient moments: the press of Sera’s mouth, the rain-cold then heat, the way her fingers had tightened at his nape. He forced the memor